Adios 2006

Another year as come to an end and Joel and I are hard pressed to remember everything we have been so lucky to do. Starting 2006 in Darwin seems like another world away and everything we have seen and learnt since makes us feel like different people.

Learning the Spanish language (though poorly) is just the beginning, matched with learning about the geography, history and politics of each country we visit- which is so deep and complex we can only scratch the surface. Then there are the people. The warm smiles of locals, the grubby faced children on the streets, the other travellers on their own quest for a taste of South America, it is all these people we meet that have brought life to our experiences and taught us things about life that we just can`t learn at home.

We will be spending the end of the year at the end of the world- Ushuaia. The most southerly city on earth. So as we come into the New Year we look forward to visitng new countries, spending more time on beaches and less time on mountains and gradually prepare ourselves for working again- but this time in the UK.

We hope 2006 brought you many joys and that 2007 holds many more for you.
Happy New Year.

Some pictures from our travels this year...

Volcan Lanin

Lanin´s Mapuche name means ´Dead Rock´as the Mapuche people believed that anyone who climbed the mountain would be killed by evil spirits!

The intimidating figure of Volcan Lanin towering over all its surrounding mountains, gave us the chance to redeem ourselves and summit a volcano after failing to summit Cotopaxi in Ecuador. This time we would succeed and the fact that we did it solo made it much more satisfying.

The first day of hiking took us through southern beech forest and then opened up to impressive views of Lanin. Later in the day we would tread on volcanic basalt followed by snow - it was the perfect way to start the mission. Our destination was Refugio Caja and we reached the refuge hut in good time finishing the day by donning our crampons to climb the last two hundred so metres in snow. The ´refugio´ was very basic. Picture a shed the shape of a triangle, with concert floor and that was our pace of rest. For drinking water we had to boil up snow with the trusty MSR stove (boys love their toys) as everything was frozen. That night I radioed National Parks to find out what the weather was doing the next day for our summit attempt and the news wasn´t good.

The following day saw some of the worst weather we have experienced in the Andes. Gale force winds, the kind that makes peeing an interesting challenge, heavy snow fall and fog that would make navigation through the glacier and crevasse landscape near impossible. This meant we were hut bound for the day. Snuggled in our sleeping bags we played cards and chess to pass the time and drank tea to stay warm whilst not trying to consume too much in the fear of having to go outside in the freezing conditions to relieve our bladders.

The radio call that night did not give us any positive news ´Clima Malo´ bad weather. However, the Gods were on our side as when I woke at 4am the dark sky was lined with nothing but twinkling stars. GAME ON.

Katie leads the charge at sunrise followed by some German climbers, the wind is strong.

We climbed up over 1200 metres with the last 2 hours on an angle greater then 45 degrees. Katie and myself reached the summit in just under 5 hours. The second group to stand on top of the volcano behind two German mountaineers, Derk and Jork. It was both a breath taking 360 degree view and an amazing sense of achievement.

That same day we hiked 2700 metres down often sliding on our bums using the ice axe as a brake to the ranger hut. Whilst looking behind us it was hard to believe that only hours before we were standing on the summit of that great mountain. The beer tasted that much sweeter back in town while we chatted about our feat.